Man indicted for alleged assault with wooden sword

A Kenai grand jury last week indicted a Homer man in the alleged beating of a woman with a bokken, a wooden sword used in martial arts practice.

Adrian W. Rastopsoff, 30, faces two counts each of first-, second- and third-degree assault, and one count of third-degree criminal mischief, all domestic violence related and all felonies.

According to a criminal complaint by Alaska State Trooper Samuel Webber, about 12:30 a.m. June 8 troopers received a report from the South Peninsula Hospital Emergency Room that a woman was being treated for injuries from an assault at an East End Road home.

Webber contacted the woman, age 56, and her adult son, age 37. The son had brought his mother to the ER by taxi cab. ER staff told Webber the woman had a broken right shoulder blade, at least five broken ribs on her right side and a small puncture in her lung. The woman was held in Intensive Care for several hours and later medevaced to another hospital for more care.

In interviews with the son and his mother, Webber said they told him Rastopsoff, the son of the woman’s boyfriend, had gone to her house on East End Road. The woman was in the process of breaking up with her boyfriend and moving out. The boyfriend heard yelling downstairs and got into a fight with Rastopsoff, Webber alleged. The woman then went to investigate and saw the boyfriend knocked down. She grabbed the bokken, a 40-inch long “katana” style wooden Japanese sword, and hit Rastopsoff in the arm.

Webber alleged that Rastopsoff then took the bokken from the woman and hit her in her right side and shoulder. The boyfriend then woke up and fought with his son. The woman got away from them and went upstairs, where she called her son, a U.S. Army veteran who knew “medical stuff,” she said. He took her to the hospital.

Webber went to the East End Road home and contacted the boyfriend. He said his son had come to the house and argued with another woman in the house.

The boyfriend said he tried to stop the argument, but that his son allegedly shoved him and knocked him down. He said his son appeared drunk. The boyfriend then woke up and saw his son fighting with the woman, Webber wrote. The son then left.

Later, the boyfriend discovered the woman’s 1998 Dodge Dakota windshield had been shattered, apparently by the bokken, Webber wrote.

Homer Police later arrested Rastopsoff about 9:20 a.m. June 8 at a Bartlett Street address.